Biren Roy with Adolf Hitler in Berlin, 1936

On August 27, one of Bengal’s illustrious sons, Biren Roy, turned 100. Today’s generation may know him as the name behind the road on which Sourav Ganguly lives. But turning the pages of history resurrects a pioneering aviator, an able administrator and a backbone of the Communist movement in Bengal who led a colourful life.

Thrice in his life Biren Roy was disowned by his father, recalls nephew Prabir. Biren came from an affluent family, the money originating with his grandfather Ambica, a court translator whose monthly pension was a fabulous Rs 700 in the late 19th century.

The first conflict happened after he was rusticated from Presidency College. Biren used the 10,000 guineas he was gifted at his sacred thread ceremony and made off to England, across “kalapani”, a sacrilege in those days. The second conflict was the fallout of his infatuation for Congress founder-president W.C. Bonnerjee’s granddaughter Mini. “Just imagine, it was the 1920s and they were living together,” says Prabir. The Bonnerjees were Brahmo, making the marriage unacceptable. “Jyatha’s grandma saved the day by making Mini promise she would never marry him.”

But Biren, lured by promises of an aircraft and Rs 1 lakh as dowry, was soon married off to a Jaipur girl. Biren’s father bought him the aircraft, passing it off as a gift from his father-in-law. Biren flew it to Jaipur and claimed the pending lakh. All hell broke loose once he realised the dupe and accosted his father.

But there must have been a reconciliation each time. For Biren went on to become mayor of south Calcutta . An album recovered recently from a trunk, 16 years after his death, reveals cuttings of news reports of him representing India at the World Congress of Municipal Administrators in Berlin in 1936.

This tour must have occasioned a meeting with Adolf Hitler, of which a photograph remains the sole witness. Biren’s link with Germany remained intact till the end. “He kept visiting the country twice a year, making us suspect he had a wife there,” laughs his nephew.

Biren used to fly Netaji often on secret missions and the Roy house has scores of pictures of the duo. “But till his last day, not a word passed his lips on Netaji’s activities.”

The aviation industry would remember him for setting up Behala Flying Club (BFC), the first air training institute in eastern India, in 1928, and designing a light air craft in 1948.

Muzaffer Ahmed, a founder of the CPI, remained a house guest for a long time in their Ballygunge house. “The Communists’ Swadhinata press was owned by jyatha.”

Behala is full of Biren Roy and his gifts — movie halls (Ajanta-Ellora-Nataraj) to girls’ school to hospital to charitable institutions (Arya Samiti). He wrote 48 books in three languages on subjects as varied as a drama on labour struggle (confiscated by the British in 1929), radio manufacturing, piloting, yoga and histories of Calcutta and India. The family, celebrating the centenary, takes pride in the fact that Biren Roy Road was named decades before he passed away. That in itself is a feat.